Dear Dimes Family: An Update

It’s been a long time. It feels like only a week or two ago that we hinted on Facebook that our next blog post would be written about two of our favorite things: beer, and science! Well, I just checked, and that was actually about four weeks ago. I swear, we are living in a time-warp. Everything around us, including Mother Nature and the rest of civilization, is moving faster than we are.

We haven’t written that blog post about beer and science quite yet, but we promise we’ll get there someday. For now, an update:

Lately, we have been working on a slew of tasks: we finally found our contractor (who is AWESOME by the way), we’ve been going back and forth with the county to get final approval to start construction, lots of brainstorming over our mug club (eeek!!!), brewing beer, planning our taproom and our glassware, figuring out our pricing structure, lining up a pro to install our boiler, working on the timeline…

So, we probably have done a lot of useful things over the last couple months, but the scattered nature of our efforts makes it kind of feel like we haven’t accomplished anything. We finally sat down this weekend and diligently plotted out all of our next steps onto a Gantt Chart (which is a fancy visual timeline). What has become abundantly clear is that we need to be ruthless about our schedule if we are going to have a fighting shot at opening anytime soon.

Our next steps include: ACTUALLY STARTING CONSTRUCTION, getting utilities installed (water purification system, boiler, plumbing, and electrical), and then more paperwork (Food Establishment license, 1,000 different types of insurance coverage, finalize our microbrewery license, etc.). It still seems like an insurmountable undertaking, all before we can even begin to brew beer!

Then, once we get the first few batches started, we need to put the last touches on taproom, hire employees, get a cash register / POS, order glassware, purchase and set up the taproom tables and chairs… and probably a bunch of other stuff I haven’t thought of yet. We really wanted to be open by the end of the year, but unfortunately it looks like it’s going to take us a little longer than that. :(

It is really easy to get lost in all of this, and forget the reason we decided to do it all in the first place. But the other day I was reminded of one of the main reasons we wanted to do this: to connect with people. Chad and I have done our fair share of moving from place to place. With each move, we were distanced from one network of people, only to begin the process of building another. Our final move to Dimondale was a little different; we don’t plan on adding any distance between us and the Village. We always wanted to start a business, especially a brewery, so when the opportunity came up, we had to take it. Now, even though we aren’t even open yet, this project has generated so much excitement and so many great interactions. We hope to create a space that allows us to connect with all you wonderful people, and for you all to connect with each other. We can’t wait to hang out with each and every one of you, to celebrate friends, family, and our small town.

And so, right now, we want to say thank you. Thank you for being there to nag prod us toward our opening date, thank you for all the encouragement, thank you for being so excited, and thank you for pushing “like” on Facebook. (Goodness gracious, there are currently 644 of you who did this!) Thank you for being our cheer squad, and know that we are working hard to bring you fresh local beer soon.

Hopefully, our next blog update will be about something you don’t want to miss: MUG CLUB MEMBERSHIPS! Please do us a tremendous favor, and invite all your friends to like Dimes Brewhouse on Facebook, if they haven’t already, so they can be the first to know how to get in the club.